Not dead, just busy

I realized it's been over a month since I last posted here.  Quite a change from the "all posts all the time" frenzy during Labyrinth of Flame's Kickstarter, huh?  But I swear, my silence has been for good reason. I've been working like crazy on structural edits for the book.  18 chapters edited, 16 to go!  Plus I've been sending ebooks of the first two novels out to the (rather large) number of people who chose the "ebook trilogy" reward for the Kickstarter, and setting up contracts with editors and illustrators, and critiquing pages for people who chose the "writer's special" reward, and about a million other tasks.

(On tonight's task list: prepare list of scenes to be illustrated and send the artist the first half of the book.  Speaking of tasks, if you're curious what a typical "workday" looks like for me as an author, I wrote up a short description for this German blog - in English, not Deutsch.)

Once I'm done with structural edits, the next big step along the production path is line editing.  Labyrinth of Flame's line editor will be Marty Halpern (who came highly recommended to me by several author-friends).  He's got a post on his blog about the Shattered Sigil books - he's currently reading the The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City in preparation for me sending him The Labyrinth of Flame.  

Heh, and in other news, I turned 40 this month (something I was amused to see celebrated on this German SFF blog).  Some of my non-Colorado friends seem to think a 40th birthday requires some kind of despairing freak-out.  I just laugh; here in Boulder, people still run marathons when they're 90.  Granted, not everyone is so lucky to have their health and bodies hold out.  But so long as mine does, I'm gonna keep right on playing as hard as I ever have in the mountains.  Warren Miller may say, "Anyone who says they're a better skier in their 40s than they were in their 20s...wasn't a very good skier in their 20s."  But I say that's the beauty of coming to skiing late. :)

Oh, and just in case you're saying, "Gosh, I wish I had another fantasy featuring lots of magic and a young blood mage with a mysterious past to read while I wait for The Labyrinth of Flame..."  - I've got the perfect rec for you!  While suffering from a horrible cold a few weeks back, I read V.E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic and LOVED it.  One of those books that hit all my personal buttons just right as a reader.  Nifty magic, a great use of a parallel world concept, some great characters I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with (including the aforementioned young blood mage!), and a well-crafted story that kept me zipping through the pages (or hitting "next" on my Kindle, anyway).  The story works pretty well as a standalone but leaves enough threads open that I cannot wait for the sequel, A Gathering of Shadows.  (It releases next year. Thankfully I am so busy I know the time will go fast.)